Three months after the Annual Meeting in Sheffield, we have some reports from workgroups and a general update on progress on other Ringing 2030 projects.
Recruitment & Development Workgroup
We’re celebrating two big milestones:
- Southwest Course Success – The inaugural course was held in October and so far the feedback has been very positive, as well as breaking even in the first year.
- Briefing Initiative Launched – Our first Workgroup briefing went live last week, and we’re already planning the next one for February.
Looking ahead, upcoming actions include:
- Supporting bids for another regional course (with advice and seed funding available).
- Launching a communications campaign to explain the Central Council’s role and how workgroups coordinate volunteers to achieve 2030 goals.
Youth Ringing Workgroup
We’ve made great progress on education and youth engagement:
- Lesson Plans in Schools – Science lesson plans are out for review and trial. Feedback will shape the remaining plans, which are already in development.
- University Ringing Site Relaunch – A refreshed site is scheduled for launch in January after a December review.
Future plans include expanding youth engagement through initiatives like the Derbyshire “Know About Bellringing” badge and creating a national blueprint for Scouts and youth groups.
Ringing 2030 – Progress Update
The Ringing 2030 programme is moving forward across its three key pillars: Marketing, Recruitment & Development, and Environments. Here’s where we stand:
Pillar 1: Marketing
- Brand Development: Initial marketing collateral and branding research are complete.
- School Outreach: Lesson plans for bellringing are in trial stages, with feedback shaping future development.
- Scouts & Guides Outreach: Planning is underway to extend engagement beyond schools.
- Recruitment & Marketing Portal: Phase 1 is in progress; Phase 2 will follow.
- Major Marketing Campaign: Scheduled but not yet started.
Pillar 2: Recruitment & Development
- Regional Courses: Both the Northwest and Southwest courses have been delivered successfully. Work is underway to identify the next regional course.
- University Ringing website refresh is nearly complete and on track for launch soon.
- Support for university ringing and young ringers networks is progressing well.
- Recruitment Network: ART recognition achieved; other projects are in planning or paused pending resources.
Pillar 3: Environments
- Leadership & Diversity: Leadership training has started; diversity review is planned.
- Professional Engagement: Work continues on capturing tower engineering expertise and developing best practice resources.
- Support for Associations: Initiatives like the Westley Award and Young Ringers Hub are in progress.
- Technology Projects: Unified ringing platform and association website templates are planned but not yet started.
What’s Next?
We’re proud of the progress so far, but there’s more to do—if any of these projects interest you, please email us at to find out how you can get involved, be it as part of a project team or starting your own local initiative.
We won’t lie – our biggest challenge right now is a delivering a general marketing and awareness campaign. We have the raw material, and we have a lot of great ideas and we have a draft campaign plan. We need some enthusiastic people to grab this and get it moving.
If you want to know more about our marketing plans, support for associations and generally helpful tips, our next Open Meeting is all about marketing, and it’s on 18th January.
How You Can Help
- If you have expertise in Educational marketing or are interested in getting involved in the school lessons project, we need some help putting together and running a marketing campaign for our lesson plans. We have designs, branding templates and a professional Canva account to support this.
- Ideas and thoughts on the next Regional Ringing Course.
- We’re exploring a Volunteer Lead role to coordinate skills and resources across workgroups for better project delivery and succession planning. It’s early days but we welcome your thoughts.
- If you are passionate about scouting and guiding we need a person to lead the rollout of the work being done in Derby.